


Onyesha

by ArtsyMeeShee, pessimisticvirtuoso



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: ArtsyMeeShee, Don’t copy to another site, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Previous Self-Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, a lot of stangst, devils advocate, fic for a fren :), i gave honest effort ok, mental manipulation, naturally both of the stans need hugs, original race, previous suicidal ideation/attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-03-20 09:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18990172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyMeeShee/pseuds/ArtsyMeeShee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pessimisticvirtuoso/pseuds/pessimisticvirtuoso
Summary: They finally got to set sail, just like they wanted to as kids. He was happy, Ford was happy, and they were okay, right?Then why does this island make him feel like they're not?TW: Suicide attempt, mentions/descriptions of self-harm, and previous suicidal ideation





	Onyesha

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArtsyMeeShee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtsyMeeShee/gifts).



The ocean waves lapped at the sides of the Stan O'War II as it plowed through the water, set on the speck of darkness on the horizon that Ford assured was an island. Unlike his twin, Stan found himself unenthusiastic about their next stop. Call it a sixth sense, but he felt odd about this place. It was heavy and foreboding, hanging over his conscience like a viper poised to strike. He felt tingly with anxiety, and angry because he was anxious. _Weak,_ something whispered in his head. _You weigh him down._

What the hell?

Stan leaned against the metal railing on the deck, face set in a troubled frown. The sea breeze rustled Ford's hair, and he would bet money that it affected him too, even when anchored down by his beanie. As the island grew closer, that same oppressing dark feeling grew heavier and more noticeable. It wasn't much, admittedly, it was nothing compared to some of the thing's he's suffered through, but it's enough to make him feel a bit on edge. _He's pitying you._

"Hey, uh, Ford?" At his brother's questioning gaze, he cleared his throat. "Don't you feel a little, I don't know- odd, about this?"

Ford furrowed his brows a bit- if Stan wasn't so familiar with him by now, he wouldn't have even noticed.

"No," he said, "Why do you ask? Do you?" The way it was phrased was genuinely curious, nothing laid behind the tone as it did before Weirdmageddon. Stan felt a spike of uncertainty and his courage to tell the truth washed away like a seashell at high tide. He adopted an easy-going smile and quirked his eyebrows.

"Psh, nah," he replied, waving his hand lazily in the air as if waving the suggestion away. "Just wanted to see if big ol' Fordsy was tough enough to handle an unknown island with unknown things on it." The excuse was weak at best, but his brother hopefully interpreted the entire conversation as an attempt to playfully jab at him. If Stanford's eye roll was anything to go by, then he did. Relief swept through him, but he kept his mouth fixed in that lopsided smile as he refocused on the horizon, where the island was gradually getting bigger. He had already made Ford miss out on so many opportunities in their lives, he didn't want his weakness to a weird feeling keep him from this, too. _Screw-up, he doesn't want to be here, stuck with a lazy, good-for-nothing excuse of a-_

Ford knew his brother way too well to buy the cover-up, but he chose to stay silent, taking mental notes instead. Personally, he was excited- this island was certainly not their main objective, but as soon as they had gotten within a 100-mile radius of it, his machines went crazy- he himself had no idea how to interpret it. He's never seen anything like it, so naturally, they're going to investigate.

As they neared the island, they noticed movement on the land. Stan straightened himself and Ford's eyes widened. The movement solidified into shapes, and then easily observable lifeforms as the distance between the boat and the island decreased. The elder twin stared in amazement before he realized how fast they're approaching the land. He snapped into action with a muttered curse, hurriedly cutting off the engine and guiding the boat to shore safely and smoothly, despite his mounting excitement.

When their feet hit the rocky sand of the beach, a small crowd of the beings had already formed around them. Ford gasped in awe. Each creature was made out of stone and humanoid in shape, the color ranging anywhere on the monochromatic scale- although he saw very few of the extremes. They all had distinctive, swirling cracks running up and down their bodies, running up and down their limbs and coiling in a circle over their chest. At the deepest parts of the crevices, he could see a faint light glowing. Very few of these beings shone the exact same color, he realized. Their faces were fairly smooth, the only features to be found were two matching, round gemstones set in the 'face' that served as a pair of eyes. Like the seemingly intrinsic glowing, it was hard to find two of them who shared the same eyes.

"I thought they were all extinct," he breathed out.

They were all 'whispering' amongst themselves in a flurry of hand motions that neither of them could recognize- it was certainly not any sort of known sign language, and he would have been surprised if it was. It was not unheard of for them to know any human language, but sign language was highly unlikely. A sharp jab to the ribs from his brother brought him out of thoughts.

"Mind telling me what I'm lookin' at here, Sixer?" At his words, the group around him began to actually whisper and mumble amongst themselves. Their accent was horribly thick and unidentifiable, but it was English, they could tell from the few consonants they heard.

Ford was _floored._

"These," he said quietly, voice pitched low to avoid them hearing his words, "are Petrimivese- essentially, fully sentient stone elementals. They were rumored to be completely extinct, but it appears we've stumbled across an undiscovered cluster of them." Stanley's eyes observed the elementals with a keen eye, taking in the details.

"Do they have weaknesses or anything? I need to know if we need to beat it," he said, mimicking his brother's tone.

"They're stone- no weaknesses that I know of," came the hissed reply, "unless you want to count explosives or persistent pick-axing. Besides, all of the known Petrimivese were benevolent."

One of the stone beings stepped forward and squinted at Stanley, emerald eyes examining him critically. Stan shrunk back at the close proximity. _He missed his chance because of you. He went through the portal because of you. He's here because of you. He's unhappy because of you._

"This one is troubled," it spoke- Ford assumed it was female due to the curvier build, shorter height, and softer face. Other than that, there were no tells- elementals didn't reproduce as they did and therefore had no reproductive anatomy. The voice itself sounded like it came from deep within the earth, low and smooth, with a rolling quality to it. Stan could feel the gentle reverberations in his chest from the proximity as he pulled a face and spluttered indignantly.

"Troubled? Who's troubled? If you think you know something about me, then," he said, intending to intimidate, but it was too late. Several others were agreeing, their voices colliding together like a rockslide.

"Yes, his aura is-"

"What cause has he to-"

"Bring him to-"

"Yes, bring him-"

"Would he even make it-"

"Such despair-"

_Selfish, selfish, selfish-_

"Enough," rumbled the emerald-eyed being, before she turned to Stan, and by extension, Ford. "You two will come with me." With no warning, she had grabbed their wrists and were nearly dragging them through the crowd. Ford yelped and Stan protested, the crowd watching for a moment before dispersing amongst themselves.

The twins struggled and writhed, but the female's grip was, well, like stone. Eventually, they both dug their heels into the sand hard enough that the humanoid stopped in her tracks and turned to face them. Ford, always the diplomat, stepped forward and spoke before Stanley's hotheadedness landed them in trouble.

"You must understand," he said, "We've no idea where we're going, and we just arrived. Would you care to take the time to enlighten us to the questions we have?"

Apparently, 'enlighten' was the right word to say, because Ford swore that those jewels sparkled with a newfound light, and the jade glow of her body brightened in the late afternoon sun.

"You are on the isle of Meridiem, and I am taking you to the Enlightened One. Your partner's soul is dark and dreary, and so is yours- but he is far more worrisome. Your spirits need light, else you will taint the land and cause the waters to run dark, and everyone shall perish." Ford was already scribbling notes in his journal, his gaze focused and steady. Stan, however, had a much more functional bullshit meter and gazed at the elemental evenly.

"Yeah, no. Ford, we're outta here. Finish getting your nerd notes as we're walking." _He feels bad for you and he resents you- look at how you're treating his genuine interests. Shameful, disgusting, how can you bear yourself?_

How could he get these to stop? It was as if someone were whispering right in his ear, constantly saying the same thing he thought he was past. It drove him crazy, and it was getting so hard to ignore. The voice made him itchy all over like he used to feel when he and Ford were kids and he wouldn't bathe for a week. It made his skin crawl.

Those eyes were on him again, and so were Ford's, but he held firm in his resolve, even if the stubbornness and the whispering made heavy, leaden guilt build in his chest. He turned to walk away, but that stone grip enveloped his wrist again and _yanked,_ bringing him face to face with the female elemental. He saw his brother shove the journal into his coat and begin to scrabble towards him, but both of them were locked in place by the elemental's body glowing bright, jade green light erupting from the swirling cracks along her body. It nearly blinded Stan, and for a moment, his entire world consisted of this creature alone. He could barely move, he couldn't think, he could hardly breathe as some form of sheer energy wrapped its way around the two brothers.

As soon as it started, it was over, and they both dropped into the sand, temporarily unable to hold their own weight. For his part, Ford had almost forgotten just how powerful Petrimivese could be, especially in manners concerning non-tangible forces.

"Ah, well," he said, climbing to his feet again, "would you mind giving us a moment- uh," he hesitated, leaving the blank open. She seemed to glance between the two.

"Terberis," she said, and promptly walked a good distance away. She watched them from her place between two of the larger boulders on the beach- if neither of them knew better, they wouldn't have noticed she was there in the first place. It was unsettling, to say the least. Ford turned to Stan with a tired sigh.

"Look, Stan, I don't really think we have much choice. If we try to run, any one of these beings here could easily overpower us. I think it's best that we just cooperate so we can get out of here as fast as possible."

"Okay, so you probably have a point, but don't tell me you honestly believe all this crap about 'dark souls' and 'cleansing' and 'making the water run dark' or whatever? 'Cause that's all malarkey, you know that, right?" _Let him be and enjoy what he wants. Christ, you just have to hold him back, don't you?_ Goosebumps ran up and down his arms.

Ford sighed. "I can't say that I do, honestly, but as I said, I doubt that we have another choice. Let's just try and get this over with as soon as possible, make it quick and painless."

"I gotta agree with the 'make it quick'. Something ain't right here," Stan said, then flickered his gaze around the beach. Other elementals went about their own business as if there weren't two members of another species standing in their midst. Some of the shorter, younger looking ones played in the sand, and some of the older ones were either supervising the small ones or foraging for supplies. It was so domestic, normal in the face of abnormality. How could these creatures live in harmony when there was such a bitter, foreboding taste to the air?

Ford nodded before turning to face Terberis, flashing her a thumbs-up. She nudged off of the boulder she had leaned up against and walked toward them. Her eyes were dead-set on Stan the entire time, and he wanted to squirm under the intense gaze, but no- he was a Pines man, and he'll damn well act like it.

He silently trudged behind Terberis and Ford as they headed towards the tree line. There weren't many trees on the island, actually, just enough to offer a bit of shade, broken up by dancing bits of sunlight at noon, but not dense enough to be unable to tell where they were going. She leads them to a cobblestone building, round and built like a stone igloo, much larger than the smaller, straw-and-stick huts near it. As they drew closer, the weight of guilt in his chest and the itching in his skin seemed to multiply, and the whispering was now impossible to ignore.

_He doesn't love you; he doesn't want you, you dragged him out here against his will and now he hates you and its all your fault. It was your fault when anything bad happened to him. You're a failure, a coward-_

He collided with Ford's back, nearly sending them sprawling in different directions. Stan clapped a hand down on his twin's shoulder, and the other barely righted himself in time. A quick glance back revealed Stan's apologetic face, and Ford accepted the wordless 'I'm sorry' with a wordless 'it's okay'. The cobblestone house, if it could be called that, was much larger than he thought it was. He figured it would be pretty big since he knew the height of the straw huts and it was larger by comparison, but it was still ridiculous. Two more Petrimivese guarded the door, which was just a piece of fabric split down the middle, but with some more of that strange signing from Terberis, they stepped aside. For a moment, the twins stood there, unsure if they should both enter at the same time, and who would go first if they didn't. The issue was resolved for them when a hard hand found the middle of Stan's back and gave it a not-so-gentle push toward the door. Naturally, he loudly protested, but went anyway, glancing back at his brother one more time before his vision was cut off from the fabric shifting back to its original position. The sun seemed to cut off completely with the fabric back in place.

If he thought that he felt heavy outside, he was absolutely _suffocating_ in here. He meant it in a literal sense as well- it was far more difficult to draw breath in here. Hesitantly, he stepped forward, unsure of his destination. Was this all just one big room, or were there divided sections? He couldn't tell, it was unusually dark in here. As he continued forward, however, he was aware of a light crawling to life in a similar pattern that the rest of this weird species sported- if he, a man with no high school diploma or GED, could make an educated guess, he would say it was this 'Enlightened One' hogwash that the green stone lady had gone on about.

It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that he really wasn't enthused about meeting them.

The light grew brighter, bright enough to where it softly illuminated the room, but definitely low enough to where he could stand to look at the elemental that it belonged to. They sat on the floor, on what looked to be some sort of tapestry. In front of them, a similar piece of fabric was laid out for him to sit on as well. The crevices on this being ran deeper than any of the ones he had seen earlier, and they were far more numerous. Their eyes were opalescent, and Stan made the mistake of establishing eye contact- or at least what could be counted as eye contact. Immediately he felt like he did earlier, with Terberis. He couldn't move anything but his head, and all he could focus on was that elemental right in front of him. His very being squirmed with discomfort at the loss of movement, uneasy in the knowledge that he couldn't escape if he needed to.

 _A very troubled soul indeed,_ the voice said. It was the same one that had been bothering him since he laid eyes on the island, and it seemed to boom and reverberate in his skull, no longer an ignorable whisper. This voice nearly stole his entire thought process, and he supposed that it would've dwarfed his thoughts entirely had he been a lesser man.

_You hold onto the past and use it to propel your future, instead of letting it go and making your own way. You suffer because you are weak of heart, soul, and mind. Your being is darker than the night of a new moon. You must learn to be independent, otherwise, you will only hurt him more. He doesn't want to be here, with you of all people- a dishonest brother, and charlatan for most of your natural life. Stanford wouldn't want to be caught in that company. He abhors you for making him come with you and fulfill a dream that only one of you had._

"I did what I had to in order to _survive,_ " Stan gritted out. "And Ford was the one to ask about leavin'. I don't care how you know any of the details of my life, but you don't know jack _shit_ about my brother."

 _Are you certain?_ The voice nearly purred, and Stan felt like a snake was wrapping itself around him, putting velveteen falsities in his mind. _Surely you remember how he treated you after he came back. Are you really so naïve that you believe he was past that?_

"He said so himself," he said with absolute certainty. "We've had issues but we're past them."

_What about that project when you were seventeen? It took him a decade to reach out to you afterward, and it took three more for him to say he believed you, and that was only when you were about to die. Who's to say that he didn't just say that for your closure? If he can hold a grudge for that long, don't you think he could hold onto one for longer?_

Stan had nothing to say to that. He knew it was unlikely that the words he heard were true, but he couldn't help but reflect on them for a little bit. It hurt- Sweet Moses, it hurt, but he couldn't keep himself on that topic. He knew he had resolved things with his brother. Right?

_Every day is another reminder for him that he's saddled with his good-for-nothing brother on a sea voyage that will last months upon months. How do you not notice his misery? How do you rationalize his lasting anger at you? Are you really so dense?_

Stanford wasn't miserable, he tried to tell himself. He was happy to spend time with him, to catch up and make up for the decades they spent apart. Sure, he'd gotten irritable sometimes, but so had he. Everybody had those days, he insisted, but his own words fell flat to his psyche. He had tried so hard to patch things up with his brother, and when he finally thought he had succeeded, naturally he worried about it for months and months until he fell into the rhythms of domestic life with Ford. He thought he was past this, but evidently, he wasn't.

_You're weak, you're nothing. You can't keep up with your brother. Even after all these years, he's still got his potential, and what meaningful things have you done? You've got nothing compared to him. You're the lesser one in value, the one that nobody prefers. He hates being held back, having to stop every three seconds to explain something that you should already know or help you with some simple task that shouldn't require assistance._

He can't let this get to him, he _can't._ The only problem with that, he thought to himself, is that he already had. His eyes prickled but he refused to let his tears fall. His chest, already heavy with guilt, grew heavier with this knowledge- he really was weak, nearly crying over words. He hadn't done that since he was a child, back when Crampelter had just moved to Glass Shard. He had hardly cried for anything over his life. Crying was Ford's reaction, and anger was his.

Those opal eyes never wavered from his, and he doubted that he would ever forget them for the rest of his life.

_Your father was right, it seems. Hardly a man, even at your age. Too weak-willed to accept the truth, too cowardly to change it, and too much of an imbecile to notice it at the start. You'll always be second place to him, but you like to think yourself of equals. This foolish comparison has hurt you both, and resentment runs deep on both sides. You must face the facts- you are idiotic, worthless, a waste of time and effort, a burden to carry around, dim-witted, brainless-_

"Stop," Stanley whispered. The voice grew in volume, nearly splitting his skull apart in its intensity. He did not whimper, absolutely not.

_He is better off without you. It is irrefutable. You've been a thorn in his side since birth, as the unplanned twin. All your interests were tolerated with no small amount of disdain, and wouldn't that make sense? It was so easy for him to go from 'loving' you to hating you that it makes one wonder if he ever truly loved you at all. Stanford has a larger heart than he needs to be settled with, one big enough to adequately love an unlovable parasite. You've been delusional your entire life, basking in a blanket of lies weaved by threads of kindness-_

"Stop," he said, louder this time. He was sure that they heard him but continued to barrel on anyway. Shame sat hot and burning inside of him, coiling around him and constricting his breathing more than it already was.

_You kept yourself alive on false hope for four decades, under the illusion that you had a brother that cared about you enough to thank you if you ever got him back. On the streets, he was the only thing keeping you alive, the only thing that persuaded you to put the gun down that night in your car. The only thing that made you swerve the wheel to the left instead of driving through that railing on the cliff. All those years you kept yourself alive for a lie, something you fell for so easily. He was your motivation to live, to keep going, to make something of yourself instead of settling down and letting people-_

"That's ENOUGH!"

The miasma that seemed to encase him dissolved back into the air around them, and he found that he could move again in the form of collapsing to the floor, not expecting the sudden responsibility of having to hold himself up again. Their voice still floated around in his head, but it was back to the whispering volume it had started off as, and Stan found it much easier to repeat his earlier actions and ignore it. He struggled to get his bearings, scrambling to his feet as soon as he could. He pointedly avoided looking the Enlightened One in the eyes again, and instead, he studied the swirling, intricate crack on their chest.

_You have not truly lived yet. Your past drags you under the waters of life, trapping you and making you suffer. You have far too many regrets, and I fear that if you do not move past them, you will not learn the feeling of weightlessness before your last breath. Come to terms with your emotions, and you will thrive._

The white light that seeped from the swirls on the elemental intensified, and Stan had to shut his eyes against the brightness. He could have sworn that he was staring down the sun itself. The voice intensified with the light, bellowing out one last message before it faded away again.

_Then I bid you gone from my presence._

From behind his eyelids, he waited until he no longer saw color before he opened his eyes. He could still see the Byzantine pattern of white against the newfound darkness, but it was barely there. He wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't known where to look. Slowly, he turned from them and began to leave the tent, trying his best to ignore the self-reproach in his chest and the persistent pricking in his eyes. It took him longer than he would like, but eventually, he found his way to the entrance of the cobblestone building. He pushed the tan fabric aside and squinted at the light that assaulted his eyes. The world was tinted in a yellowish color as the sun began to set, but not at the point where it met the horizon. Terberis and his brother were both outside, though they had moved off to sit down on a nearby rock. Stan tried to school his face into something carefree, but given the way that Ford's eyebrows knit together, he failed. His twin immediately started walking toward him, concern etched on his countenance.

"Stanley, are you alright?" Stan laughs, trying to shrug the whole experience off, but it sounds dull even to him.

"Yeah, I just need to, uh," he paused, trying to think of a way to leave the situation, "take a walk. Alone." He internally winced- he knew for a fact that his lie wasn't convincing, but he brushed by Ford before he could form a response, and he walked off, trying desperately to keep his emotions in check, at least until he was alone. He passed by a couple more Petrimivese, who seemed to be setting up for something that night and continued on the incline leading out of the small village. He didn't necessarily care where the road lead him, as long as it was easy enough to follow back. After about forty-five minutes of wandering and climbing, he found a small cliff that was fairly isolated and walked right up to the edge, not necessarily caring if he fell or not.

The view was incredible. From here, he could see the entirety of the village and a good section of the beach, including where they had docked their boat for the time being. The sun was just starting to touch the horizon, casting the scenery in an orange glow. He sighed heavily, allowing the guilt and despair coiled tightly inside him to unravel. It shot straight to his eyes, making them prickle and water. Out here, there was nobody to judge him, nobody to laugh at him for showing his pain, and so the tears fell unbidden. Like he learned as a child, he cried silently. They dripped off of his face to the ground below, splashing pitifully against the dry ground. The Enlightened One's voice played through his head again, but this time it was as a memory.

**_"...weak of heart, soul, and mind."_ **

**_"...abhors you for making him come with you to fulfill a dream only one of you had."_ **

**_"Your father was right, it seems."_ **

**_"... always be second place..."_ **

**_"He's better off without you."_ **

**_"... kept yourself alive for a lie..."_ **

Alive for a lie, huh?

Stanley's feet shuffled closer to the edge of the cliff. He couldn't deny it anymore- as much as he didn't believe in the whole 'enlightened' thing, that elemental could see inside his mind, know his experiences and thoughts. Who's to say that they couldn't see inside Stanford's as well? Everything they said to him confirmed his worst fears, and he knew them to be true, now. Ford really hated him. He never loved him in the first place. What's the point in continuing to travel with someone who's been lying to you your whole life? There's no joy to be found in sailing anymore, not when it was only his dream. Moses, he really screwed up when he accepted Ford's offer. He couldn't have actually wanted to go with him, could he?

Stanley could call it poor impulse control, or weakness, or really whatever he wanted, but as he stood there, his body convulsed slightly with a sob. More followed after the first, and Stan clamped his hand down on his mouth to stifle himself. If he had to do this, he'd rather it be with the last bit of dignity he had left. Waiting until the sobs finally subsided, he leaned forward ever so slightly and gazed down the cliff with blurry eyes. The drop had to be at least 600 feet, and the height alone made him dizzy. He leaned back, running numbers through his head. There wasn't much vegetation down there, so unless he tried to slow himself down, the fall would probably kill him. He knew the best way to minimize injuries from a large height, so he could just... not do that and it'll be over, right?

He didn't want to keep going, not like this. Not with his brother hating him. He couldn't deal with that level of disdain anymore. Nudging closer, he let the toes of his shoes dangle over the ledge. He felt like this was the right way to go. Stanley Pines, the lesser twin to Stanford Pines, who screwed up everything he did and only gained success by lying, was going to take what his father called the 'coward's way out'. Stan knew it wasn't cowardly. It took a lot of courage for him to go through with this, but he felt inadequate even though he also felt justified. The words that the Enlightened One delivered seemed to echo around him, enveloping him, guiding him and pushing him to make his decision.

He steeled himself, looking at the sunset one more time before he stepped off of the cliff.

-=oOo=-

Ford watched his brother walk off. He knew that something was troubling him, it was written all over, well, everything. He didn't feel right, leaving his brother to be alone when he was obviously so upset, but at the same time, he and Stanley were both grown now. He should respect his brother's space, regardless of how wrong he felt because of it.

The guards, who had positioned themselves back over the door, nearly jumped apart as a weathered hand brushed the door fabric aside. Terberis and the guards both immediately knelt, placing the index and middle fingers of their right hand side by side on the center of the spiral on their chests. Stanford copied the motion belatedly, placing his on his sternum, seeing as how he didn't have a swirl himself. Other elementals around them stopped what they were doing and knelt, the action rippling through the entire beach. This being didn't seem affected by it and stood slightly hunched over in the doorway of the dome-like building. They pointed a finger at Ford and motioned him to rise. He did, feeling terribly self-conscious. Did this have to do with the whole 'troubled soul' thing that Terberis spoke of?

He heard static, quiet at first but rapidly increasing in volume as this elemental- he guessed it was the 'Enlightened One' that he was told of- walked closer and closer to him. It was roaring in his ears by the time they were face to face, but the only indication of his discomfort was his lips pinching together a bit tighter. The elder elemental took his hand in theirs, fingertips resting gently in the arch of his palm, and the static faded away into a gentle white noise. From the near silence, a voice rose, powerful as an earthquake and deeper than the abyss of the sea.

_Go to him. He needs you more than ever. He carries a lot of burdens, that one._

Stanford Pines didn't need to be told twice. Nodding in gratitude and acknowledgment, he waits until they release his hand to take off running in the direction that he saw his brother go. The trees and building blurred by him as he pumped his legs. The only other time he's run this fast, he thinks, was the time he was being chased by that organ-eating demon pelican in Dimension 43. His boots kicked up the sand as he ran along the beach, leaping over and dodging boulders that got in his way as he made a beeline for the dirt path out of the village. He didn't pay attention to his aching legs or his desperate need for oxygen, he just kept running. When he started to slow down, the line 'he needs you more than ever' is what made him pick up the pace again. Stanley had been there for him so many times in their youth, and even that one time in his thirties, and had been since he returned. He couldn't imagine not returning the favor, not when his brother needed him. Who knew how he was faring? Was he safe, or was he hurt somewhere Ford wouldn't be able to find him? 

He didn't know how long he ran. He didn't know exactly where he was going either, he just let his intuition guide him. It had worked in the past, and he needed it to work now as well. He sprinted, his footfalls hitting the ground with the tempo of someone with Hell on their heels, gritting his teeth through the exertion. As he sped by, the path got steeper, and each stride took more and more out of him than the last. Anxiety kept him going like an intravenous shot of espresso, ducking under some of the lower-hanging tree branches and leaping over their gnarled roots. His heart raced and his chest was heaving for breath, but he wouldn't stop. He was determined to find his brother, even if all this running made his heart give out. 

Anything to keep his brother safe.

He rounded a corner, sweat falling from his brow, before nearly falling over from how fast he skidded to a halt. Stanley was at the edge of the cliff that this road traveled across. His shoes were about halfway off the ledge, and Ford did not like the eerie blankness of his face. He noticed tear tracks, traveling down his brother's cheeks and glistening in the evening light.

"Stanley," he breathed out, a little louder than a whisper. The elder began to walk toward the other, but when he was almost there, Stan turned to look at the sunset. This action made him pause, but the next one had him lurching for his brother as he stepped off the edge. He just barely managed to grab a jacket sleeve before he lurched forward as well. Ford fell to the ground heavily, but his grip did not waver- it couldn't waver. He was physically hurting himself from the tightness of his grip. Ford leaned over the edge just enough to meet his brother's eyes, which were wide and shocked.

"Ford, what the hell?!" His voice cracked halfway through, and the sound tugged at Ford through his adrenaline.

"What do you mean 'what the hell'? I knew something was wrong, but I didn't think I'd find you like this!"

"What are you holding on for? Let me go!" Ford made a noise of disbelief, looking as if he had been struck across the face. How could he say that to him of all people? Like _hell,_ he would let his best friend fall to their death!

"Let you go? Are you _insane?_ Look down and tell me you want me to let you go!" He saw Stanley glance down, and suddenly his twin had a vice-like grip on his wrist. Stan's voice was small and resigned when he spoke.

"Please don't drop me, Sixer." _Thought so, Stanley._

"Then give me your other hand, knucklehead!" Stan did so immediately, and Ford leaned forward just a bit more to use his other hand as well. With a tensing of his entire body, he managed to haul his brother back up onto the earth beneath him. For a moment, they both laid there in the dirt, gasping from either exertion or adrenaline, or both. Nobody broke the fragile silence, and even once they catch their breath, both are hesitant to be the first to talk. Ford, however, takes the initiative.

"Would you care to explain," he said, his voice soft, "why you just tried to end your life?" He knew there wasn't much he could do to tiptoe around it, this was something that he needed to be fairly blunt with, clinical, even, if he wanted to try and keep his emotions in check. Right now, they swirled just underneath his skin, held back by a sheer force of will.

He's seen Stan depressed before. He's seen the scars left from the wounds that he had inflicted on himself as a teen- some of which he had bandaged himself. Even he had similar scars. He knew what this felt like, the utter worthlessness of never measuring up to what people wanted to you be, of always thinking you'll never make something out of yourself because everything seemed so impossible. He knew the wretched feeling of contemplating one's own death, and he had hoped that that was a pain Stanley was spared from. It was hoping against hope, statistically speaking, but it broke his heart all the same.

The silence between his question and his brother's response was longer than he would have liked, but the response came all the same.

"They were right. I was an idiot to think otherwise, isn't that right, Ford?"

"Stanley, what are you even talking about?" He shifted to sit up, legs crossed, and Stan did the same. Ford glanced over at his brother, studying the way the sunlight cast shadows across his face. His brother's face was pinched in the same way it always did when he thought like this. The sight, mixed with the nostalgia and worry it brought him, hit him like a train. Stan scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, trying to clear away any evidence of tears despite knowing that his twin had already seen them.

"That elemental person. The 'Enlightened One'," he said, marking the title with air quotes, "they told me about how I was dragging you down and how I forced you to come on this trip with me. I tried to refuse it at first because you told me otherwise, and I wanted to believe you over them, but I couldn't deny it anymore. They went on and on about how you never loved me and that you only tolerated me as a kid because I brought you down all the time. They told me how Pa was right all along and how I never amounted to anything- how you would be better off without me," he said. His voice was gruff and thick with emotion, and at that moment he wanted more than anything to be able to make himself sound normal.

"Stan-"

"And it just made so much sense, y'know? They brought up a point about the project- it took you a decade to talk to me after that, and it took until after I brought you back to say you believed me about being an accident, but I don't even know if you _do_ believe me. They told me how I would always be second place, and that my habit of thinking of us as equals was stupid- and I know it was. I knew that I always kept you back from the things you wanted to do, kept you from your dreams. It makes sense. I agree with them, even when they said that I was only-" he cut off short, not knowing if he wanted to continue that. He knew that Ford knew of his time on the streets, how it had messed with him, and that he knew some of the things that he had suffered through, but if his memory serves him correct then he doesn't know about any of his... tendencies. Unfortunately for him, Ford wasn't going to let the issue drop. If they were going to have this conversation, they were going to have it properly. Nothing would be kept from either of them unless they weren't asked about it.

"You were only," he prompted. His brother sighed through his nose, reluctant to share this bit of truth with Ford. He grumbled the rest of his sentence, but the other one caught it anyway.

"I was only keeping myself alive because of a lie, talking about how you didn't love me at all. I believed them, so I figured I shouldn't have to keep myself alive if it really had been a lie this whole time."

Ford felt his blood run cold. "What do you mean, 'keeping yourself alive'? What specifically?" He was sure he knew the answer but this was a situation where he loathed to be proven right. A long silence stretched out between the twins. Ford turned his head to the right, watching the sunset, expecting a response.

"You... remember the problem I had as a teenager, Stanford?"

"I do," Ford murmured. How could he _forget?_ He remembered the night he first found Stanley, how he had panicked, trying to hide the blade from him, trying to explain the blood. He remembered how heartbroken he had felt when he realized just how torn up his brother felt over things that he seemed to just brush off. He remembered the first time he found his twin with a noose. The images burned just behind his eyelids, torturing him, and Ford had to repress a shudder.

"It was that, but... worse. Harming turned into an everyday thing, and attempts were at least once a week. I'd always put the gun back on safety, or throw the rope away, or sell the pills somehow, but the need to do it was always there. The only thing that kept me going was you. And to know that the one thing still keeping me from just offing myself each day was fake, well," he said, turning his head to look at Ford, "I didn't want to keep going anymore." A mirthless laugh fell from his lips. He didn't know exactly why he told him all that, other than the fact that it needed to be said. He didn't want to leave anything unsaid anymore.

It was getting harder and harder for Ford to retain his composure. He wouldn't lie, he thought that might have been the case, but hearing it in such a heartbreaking tone was terrible. He despised the fact that his brother, his best friend, went through so much. He could've spared him the pain- at least some of it, anyway.

"Stanley," he said, voice breaking on the second syllable, "I never stopped loving you. Please, please believe me when I say that. Please. I had been upset, furious even, at you, but I never stopped loving you. I could've saved you so much heartbreak and pain had I just stood up to Filbrick that night-"

"Sixer," Stan said, unsure of how to properly handle the situation.

"Let me finish. Listen, I want you to know that nothing that elemental said to you was true. You've never let me down and you never held me back from anything. I never 'just tolerated' you and I never would've asked you to come on this trip with me if I didn't want you here. You always have been, and always will be my equal. Our strengths lie in different areas, that's the only difference. Filbrick was wrong about you- so, so terribly wrong, and if he were alive, I swear to you I would punch him in his fake prescription sunglasses. You will always be my best friend, the most valuable thing in my life, and I would be absolutely devastated to lose you," he said. Tears trailed down his cheeks delicately, and in the dying light of twilight, he could see that Stan's face was marked by tears as well.

"I love you, Stan. Please, never forget that."

Stan was speechless. The silence stretched between them, though it wasn't uncomfortable. He stared at the ground working the lump out of his throat. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and small, but no less sincere.

"Thank you, Ford. I... I love you too." His voice cracked on the last syllable and he was alarmed at how quickly the tears filled his eyes. He had been waiting _so long_ to say that to his brother. Of course, they had made up, but neither of them said it to the other in decades. To have it confirmed was... nice. He was just so relieved yet overwhelmed, so sad yet so light and happy, that he had no idea how to truly feel. He just settled for crying and hoping to god he felt better afterward. He trembled with his sobs, and when Ford gently wrapped his arms around him, he could only cry harder. He forgot just how it felt to be hugged so close by his brother, just how comforted he felt by such a simple action from him. Usually, it was the other way around. Stan wrapped his arms around Ford as well, burying his face into the shoulder of his blue zip-up jacket. The position they were sitting in earlier made the embrace slightly awkward, but it was okay. They were okay. He was okay.

Ford was crying as well, but he wasn't shaking like his brother. He just rested his chin on top of Stanley's head and let the tears fall silently. They had both been through an emotional roller coaster ride today, Stan more so than he. He was content to just hold his brother and weep mutely, cherishing having his twin so physically close. He didn't know just how much he had missed this type of physical contact until he had it again.

"Shh," he whispered, gently rubbing Stan's back as he let it out, "It's okay, Lee. We're okay."

Ford held Stan like that until both of them had no more tears to shed. The twilight was giving way into the night, and the stars had begun to blink into existence. There were hardly any out yet, but more and more appeared as he watched. It was startlingly clear for a September night in the middle of the ocean- there were only a small handful of clouds hanging in the sky.

"Look," he said, catching the attention of his twin. Following his brother's line of sight, Stan whistled a low note as he got a glimpse at constellations that weren't normally hanging over Gravity Falls at this time of the year.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" At the other's agreement, he continued. "They're just balls of light in the sky but so many cultures have gazed at the same stars over the course of the entire history of Earth. It's amazing, the stories that some say cause their origin. It's fascinating. One sky, but so much history. It's just such a shame that Glass Shard had so much light pollution. I would've loved to have gone stargazing with you when we were kids."

"Who's saying we can't stargaze right now?" Ford looked at him with such wide eyes that Stan was sure he could fit every star in the sky inside of those blue orbs.

"You are absolutely right. How did I not think of that?"

Stan chortled. "Because for all your smarts, Sixer, you can be pretty dense sometimes." That earned him a playful punch to the arm. He knew Ford was playing around by holy Moses, when did Ford go from the nerdy little skinny boy he grew up with to this man who could probably knock out an ox? His shoulder would probably be bruised in the morning, but he punched Ford back all the same. The two brothers laid out on the ground, happy and content despite their protesting backs, and stargazed together for the first, but definitely not last, time.

**Author's Note:**

> This idea is solely @artsymeeshee's on Tumblr. If you're reading this and you haven't seen their art, then you totally should. Literally, this is just some of my artistic liberties taken with a very good story outline given to me by a good friend- I loved it so much that I think this is the fastest I've written a story this length.
> 
> (I totally have an unwritten nuance that I couldn't fit in here)
> 
> The only thing I can claim rights to is the Petrimivese- yes, I made them up. They are my idea. 
> 
> Onyesha is Swahili for 'enlighten'.
> 
> -JAMS


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